pointed commentary on current affairs in Jamaica and the Caribbean

It wasn’t a good day – it started with news that US star athlete Tyson Gay had failed a drug test and had withdrawn from the upcoming World Championships. Most track and field fans I know genuinely admire Tyson and the news was a blow. He comes across as a class act, and continued to do so, even in confirming the positive test of his A sample.

You get the picture. The point is, Asafa and Tyson are primarily the ones featured in the headlines. And rightly so – from a journalistic perspective, that is.

Jamaica is now a track and field brand. Asafa and Gay are strong brands of their own. Drug cheating is something that has brought track and field low before. It decimated cycling. To have two of the biggest stars on track right now test positive – and to have the news break on the same day – is a huge story. To have five Jamaicans at one time test positive is also a big story. No journalist worth his or her salt would ignore either.

Sure, the story will unfold, explanations will be forthcoming, and there will be developments. We don’t know yet what happened, either in Tyson’s case, or in the cases of our own athletes. That will come. We hope for the best.

But right now, the headlines will be painful to read. We had better get used to it. That’s the nature of news. Local OR foreign.

5 thoughts on “Asafa, The Foreign Press and Drug Tests”

Yes, I am old enough to remember how track and field was dragged through the mire during the days of those infamous East German runners in the good old Cold War days. The women literally looked like men! And the news will be painful, there is no getting away from it. But I think all the ill-informed speculation and conspiracy theories based on a kind of misplaced patriotism are quite unfortunate. It will all work itself out… “Stay tuned” as they say!

My problem is the default to “drug cheat” the press are so quick to use the pejoratives and a show no tendency to disclaim if things are proven otherwise. I tend not to pay attention to the news on these issues especially the foreign press and I learn more from the variety of the news feed from the many “experts” on my FB page. The views on the international press and the press in general is highly overrated. So much of what is written come from uninformed “journalists” who are not shy on being creative to get a story out.